Most famous for her speculative fiction novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood is a critically acclaimed Canadian writer recognized for her prose fiction and feminist perspective. Over the course of her career, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, and two graphic novels. In 2021, Canada unveiled a special postage stamp with her face, honoring her contributions to Canadian literature.
Atwood began writing plays and poems at age six and, a decade later, made a commitment to making it her career. She attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in the college journal and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She received her Master's Degree in English Literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1962.
Double Persephone, Atwood’s first book of poetry, was published in 1961 and won the E.J. Pratt Medal. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she published several more collections of poetry, including The Circle Game, The Animals in That Country, and You Are Happy – works exploring human behavior, reveling in nature, and chiding materialism. During this time, she taught at several universities, including the University of Alberta and York University.
Atwood’s literary star continued to rise as she published well-received novels, including Cat’s Eye, The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake. The themes of her novels explore gender and identity, animal rights, ecological upheaval, religion and myth, and the relationships between nature and culture. She has written in many genres, from Science Fiction to Mystery, and her works usually contain a character examining their past while trying to make sense of their present.
Several of Atwood’s works have been adapted to film and television, including The Handmaid’s Tale as an Emmy-winning television show, Alias Grace as a six-part miniseries, and her 2008 Massey Lectures as the documentary “Payback.”
Atwood has won a multitude of awards and honors, such as the Booker Prize, the Trillium Book Award, The Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.